


In The Empty Silence

by jellyfishline



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dean POV, Gen, Pre-Series, Stanford Era, food insecurity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2391893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishline/pseuds/jellyfishline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean hates libraries. But he'd rather be in one than be hungry and cold outside in the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Empty Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt fic inspired by yet_intrepid!

Dean’s never liked libraries.

And it’s not because they’re too quiet, okay. He knows how to keep quiet. And he knows how to read, seriously, no matter what anyone thinks. He’s not completely stupid.

But Dean doesn’t like libraries. Mostly he doesn’t think libraries like him. Books are all liabilities threatening to fold, librarians vultures eager to pick him at his one wrong move. Libraries are delicate places, self-contained ecosystems. Dean is like, some foreign predator let out of his cage. Dangerous.

But he’s in the library now. It’s raining outside and let’s face it, there comes a point where you just can’t tough it out in an upright flood. Rain gushes and smashes on the windows and grape-sized drops drip down his nose onto the library carpet.

Already he can feel the eyes lift up to judge him.

He smirks. Swaggers and pretends his cheeks aren’t heating red. He can make it through this if he just remembers to smile.

He picks his way into a section at random, a trail of water leaving in his wake. The dusty shelves well up and he’s enclosed into a too-small space.

It’s quiet, so quiet he can hear his own breaths, soft and even. Maybe it is a little too quiet.

But then, everything feels too quiet now. No Sam, no Sam and Dad fights, just footsteps and soft words and keeping his head down. Just moving around in this new emptiness. Learning the size and shape and depth. Memorizing it.

Dean shouldn’t be here. He should be at the motel, with Dad. Dean might be a fuckup who doesn’t deserve the air he breathes and Dad might (rightfully) hate the sight of him, but he can still be Dad’s backup. He can still be there for him.

What else is there left for him to do.

The shelf ends and turns into another. Dean stares at rows of cookbooks blankly. When he said he was going out to get dinner, this wasn’t what he’d pictured.

Although, honestly, he knew he wasn’t gonna come home with much with three bucks fifty in his pocket. Maybe some part of him had thought he’d happen upon some poker game or magic money-making machine sitting in the middle of the street. Right now all he’s got is damp and a full-color glossy picture of a blueberry pie.

Hunger rumbles at him. It’s made him great to be around these past few days, certainly, irritable and moody and no wonder the road has felt so bumpy, no wonder the air has felt so quiet.

He went out for food but honestly, he went out because he needed to be sure. Because Dean hates libraries and Sam always hides in them. Because when Sam was a kid he used to run away to libraries and Dean can almost picture his face peeking between the stacks.

Sam’s not here, of course. This time, Dean got here too late.


End file.
